


The Corridors of Power

by kethni



Category: Veep (TV)
Genre: F/M, request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 08:24:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13783584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kethni/pseuds/kethni
Summary: Despite his increasing familiarity with politics, Kent still hoped that the president would be a man or woman who could represent the country with dignity.





	The Corridors of Power

**Author's Note:**

> For Intronerd with thanks for the request

Kent was too young in 1963 to know who JFK was, or what a president was, except in the broadest possible terms. He was too young to understand the hysterical outpouring of grief. But he was old enough, just, to remember the sense of awe in which his parents held the office of president. Unlike many children, Kent was not told he could be whatever he wanted to be. He was told that an elephant couldn’t fly, and a bear couldn’t lay eggs. He had his nature. But an elephant could, and should, be the best kind of elephant it possibly could, and a bear should be the best kind of bear. Kent was told he had to find out what kind of animal he was.

At thirteen, Kent was too young to hear the outrageous gossip about President Johnson or be anything but embarrassed if he did hear. However, he saw Johnson giving speeches and interviews, and he knew he didn’t like him. It wasn’t Johnson’s politics. Kent was only just beginning to work out what his own politics were. No, it was something about the man himself didn’t sit right. He felt like a bully. Nobody likes bullies, not even bullies, but a bookish, thoughtful boy like Kent had extra reason to loathe them.

On the ninth of August 1974, Kent watched with his parents as Richard Nixon resigned. Kent, more than his parents, had followed the drip, drip of information, suggestion, and accusations with a mixture of fascination and horror. A president wouldn’t do those things, would he? They would have never let anyone run for president who wasn’t a decent, law-abiding person would they? Kent was eighteen and had quite a vague and ambiguous idea of who “they” might be. Clearly, however, “they” were not as good at their jobs as required. It was the first time that he had given much thought to the unseen corridors of power, and those that peopled it. It was not to be the last.

Kent was quite confident that Carter wasn’t going to win a second term. Kent had collated data from a number of publicly available polls, a poll of polls, enough for a far more representative sample size. It was interesting. He wasn’t being paid to do this. In fact, he had just been laid off from the Postal Service. Last in, first out. That had stung. The severance package had helped. At something of a loose end, Kent had joined the Carter campaign. Carter was going to lose, Kent was sure, but that didn’t bother him. Working at the campaign was eye-opening. Every day was an education. Kent, twenty-five and hungry for his life to start, was beginning to work out what kind of animal he was.

Kent spent his thirty-third birthday, not celebrating with friends, but frantically running numbers. His start-up consultancy was in its embryonic stages, but it had a few successes. Enough to get his foot in the door. Reagan was expected to win, more’s the pity, but there was something rather romantic to being the scrappy underdog. Danuja Sakai seemed to think it was something of the sort. The older woman, who barked orders with the gentleness of a marine sergeant, had taken Kent to her bed half a dozen times. Kent was not the most experienced, romantically, or sexually, and he hadn’t thought fraternising was a good idea. But he had always found that kind of take-no-prisoners assertiveness quite appealing. He had been surprised how often fraternising happened. Perhaps it was naive not to anticipate how the pressure of campaigning so often was assuaged with rampant sexual liaisons. He hadn’t been much surprised by the drug abuse, and not all by the alcohol misuse. He was beginning to think that, given the behaviour he saw, it was a wonder that more people in politics didn’t go the way of Nixon and his jailed staffers.

Marita wanted to get married. Kent wasn’t sure. He had a persistent feeling that he wasn’t marriage material. He worked late. He worked weekends. He was bad at demonstrating the affection that he felt. He almost never understood her. He did love her. He wanted to make her happy. So, he swallowed his screaming misgivings and,at the tender age of thirty-seven, lost his innocence by taking a job for The Other Side. They were offering nearly twice the money. Money that he would need if he and Marita were going to get married. Bush was by no means a man that Kent felt any affinity for, personally or politically, but he had a certain amount of dignity. Despite his increasing familiarity with politics, Kent still hoped that the president would be a man or woman who could represent the country with dignity.

The wrong Clinton was elected. It was always good as an opening gambit with new acquaintances. Kent’s team had expanded recently, although he still tried to keep it small, and he needed to know if people with opposing viewpoints had good reasons for them. Come to that, he needed to know if people agreeing had good reasons. Indira thought that Clinton was charming, and that charming people were untrustworthy. She told Kent that they went through life with a natural cheat code. Privately, Kent thought that Indira was charming, witty, and beautiful. That was irrelevant of course. She was an excellent mathematician. That was all that mattered. Nonetheless, he was deeply disappointed when she handed in her notice to move to France with her husband. He had never for a moment actually believed she would ever return his interest, but the disappointment persisted. It was the first time Kent had cared for an unavailable female colleague. It wouldn’t be last.

Selina Meyer was short, loud, and pushy. Kent always kept track of new members of congress. Meyer won on her second attempt, after what was rumoured to be a long stay in a psychiatric facility following the initial defeat. That was concerning but hardly uncommon. A certain type of person was attracted to politics, Kent had come to believe, and mental stability was not a common feature. Nonetheless, Meyer had recovered, presumably, and tried again. That was quite impressive. If she could master her temper, and control her husband, she could be quite effective.

When he had been younger, Kent had been happy to work for a lost cause. The experience and excitement had been enough to offset the disappointment. However, the polls were too narrow for him to comfortably tether his company to the current campaign. There was an uneasy mood in the country. A resentment against the outgoing incumbent that was all too often after two terms. No. Instead Kent pivoted the company focus to commercial work. Gore and Bush II could fight things out without his help.

Cressida was the CEO of a multinational with food, engineering, chemistry, and computing divisions. She invited Kent and his sales director in to bid for a contract, and then spent most of the meeting flirting outrageously with Kent. She was a few years younger than Kent; dark, a head shorter, and spoke with a soft southern accent. She teased Kent gently about abandoning “his boys” during the ongoing election campaign, spoke knowledgably about polling methods, and asked Kent for his private telephone number. Kent was annoyed. As far as he could tell, she had no genuine interest in hiring them. He thanked her for the meeting, suggested she call the office for any other information, and stomped off. By the time he and Tito had returned to D.C. there was a couriered envelope on his desk. It contained two tickets to the upcoming president’s ball, and a note asking Kent to call her. Kent gave the tickets to his assistant, Carmen. He didn’t call. He assumed Cressida would get the message. Instead, she seemed to regard it as the opening of negotiations.

Stuart Hughes wouldn’t have been Kent’s first choice of candidate. Selina Meyer had come into her own as a politician and had a strong vision. Alas, she was not the candidate who came to Kent, cap in hand, asking for his help. Hughes had done his research, at least, offering his sympathy for Cressida’s passing. He didn’t apologise for turning up the day before her funeral, but Kent wasn’t surprised. The man was arrogant and self-important, in other words: a politician. After making his pitch, focused on Kent’s ego, and his chief of staff pitching it as a way for Kent to get over Cressida’s death, Hughes made Kent promise to think about it. He had the good taste not to come to Cressida’s funeral. Meyer did, along with Carmody, a senator about whom Kent had heard some truly unpleasant rumours. Meyer had at least met Cressida a few times, mostly while soliciting donations. Cressida had teased Kent about Meyer. She thought the determined and ambitious woman was just his type. Kent disagreed.

Kent liked FLOTUS. He found her a warm, witty woman and she had been sympathetic in the early days of the campaign when he was still grieving Cressida. He had tried to be supportive while she was struggling with her depression and felt crushed when she attempted suicide. He had a very heavy heart when he told Selina that Hughes was stepping down. He knew that Selina and FLOTUS did not get along. He didn’t expect Selina to have the same sympathy for FLOTUS’s pain. Even so, he had never expected that Selina would erupt into hysterical laughter. He didn’t think it was vicious and he didn’t think it was cruel. He believed that she was hysterical in the truest meaning of the word. It was easy to forget that she suffered from depression and anxiety. That she had achieved so much was impressive itself. That she did so while dealing with mental health issues was remarkable. He admired her strength and clarity of purpose. He told himself that was all he felt. He knew it wasn’t true.

If Kent had thought about having a place in the history books, he would have hoped it was something uplifting. The campaign manager for the first incumbent president to have a tied election was a peculiar claim to fame being neither inspiring nor horrifying. It simply was. There he was. The current subject of Selina’s ire, frequently berated, and yet his resignation had been refused. She relied on him more now than ever. She took him into her confidence more than ever. He saw the fractured, frightened, and flailing woman. He saw the fierce, intelligent, and strong president. It was an impossible, intoxicating combination. Kent would never say such a thing. Kent would always remember the awe his parents held for he role of president, despite everything he had learned about the all too human foibles that those people had. Despite her selfishness, her unfairness, and her ingratitude, he had too much respect for Selina Meyer to indulge his own feelings. His own desires. No. But there was no shame surely in imaging what it might be like if things were different. If he were different. No shame in imaging the touch of her hand on his. The warmth of her breath.

Kent was sixty when the first elected female president was sworn in. A shame that she was, from his perspective, the wrong female president. Montez was dull, boring, and safe. Selina had burned brightly but briefly, like a flare in the darkness. As she passed from current president to former, from powerful to powerless, as the last of her promise and potential curdled into bitterness, Kent wondered if he would see her again. As she climbed into the helicopter, she turned around, and looked right at him.

‘Come with me,’ she said.

 

The End


End file.
